Research Engagement Officer

Please note, due to a high volume of applications, we have decided to close this role earlier than originally advertised. The new closing date is Friday 11th July 2025 at 11.59pm.

We're the UK's specialist blood cancer charity and our vision is clear: we’re here to beat blood cancer. We fund world-class research; provide information and support to patients and their loved ones; and raise awareness of blood cancer.

As Research Engagement Officer, you will be integral in helping to deliver our engagement programme within the research team.

You will work with the Research Impact and Engagement Manager to support the embedding of our researcher engagement activity into regular practice, establishing our stewardship programme to bring us closer to our funded researchers and the wider blood cancer research community. We work with some of the most exciting and promising researchers across the UK – this role will ensure that our stewardship programme thrives and that relationships built with our grant holders are maintained throughout their career, with Blood Cancer UK seen as their funder of choice.

Expected travel for this role is: Expected travel for this role is 1 day a week: meetings with researchers, conferences, team workshops, team/department away days plus two all-staff away days in the year.

We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. In line with our strategy we welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minority communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives.

Application DeadlineJuly 11, 2025DepartmentResearch, Policy & Services Employment TypePart TimeLocationLondon/HybridWorkplace typeHybridCompensation£31,000 - £35,000 / year

Key Responsibilities

**MAIN ACCOUNTABILITIES

Researcher Engagement and Stewardship**

• Develop and embed a grant-holder engagement and stewardship programme across funded researchers.
• Plan and deliver a series of grant holder visits across the UK as part of the stewardship programme, coordinating with colleagues from across the charity to ensure key teams are involved.
• Gain insight on research activity from face to face and virtual discussions with funded researchers, feedback to the research team and relevant teams.
• Develop a programme of activities to engage and support our cohort of research Fellows.
•  Work with members of the Research Team and Special Events team to plan the programme and deliver an annual grant holders day.
• Ensure we maintain a relationship with researchers throughout and after funding ends to monitor impact and ensure they remain engaged with Blood Cancer UK during and after funding.

Research community engagement

• Work with the Research Team to produce content for a research newsletter and disseminate to the community.
• Attend related meetings and conferences as required, utilising as opportunities to engage grant holders and wider research community to disseminate information on our funding schemes.
• Develop an understanding of research fields and researchers in relevant fields who aren’t funded by Blood Cancer to increase reach and awareness of the charity as a potential funder.
• Engage with key researchers and support staff in universities with blood cancer research groups to disseminate opportunities for research funding.
• Engage with research networks relevant to blood cancer research to disseminate opportunities for research funding.
• Work with HCP Engagement Team to develop journeys for clinical research and opportunities to work with our wider services team.

Research Information, insight and impact

• Maintain up-to-date resources on our research portfolio for teams across the organisation, including insight gained from researcher meetings.
• Work with fundraising teams to support the delivery of stewardship events, such as lab tours. Assist with identification of researchers and showcase opportunities to support fundraising colleagues and income generation activity.
• Work with the Research Impact and Engagement Manager in the development of our approach to monitoring activity/outputs/impact and processes to disseminate across the organisation.
• Provide information gained from outputs from reporting and engagement activity, e.g. key developments, funded grants, key papers published, conference presentations, to other teams, such as our communications team to maximise our reach to engage through earned media.
• Work with the Research Impact and Engagement Manager and Research Funding team to ensure researchers are engaged with our reporting/impact processes.
• Assist with collation of activity and outputs from our research portfolio gathered through reporting and engagement with researchers.

All employees at Blood Cancer UK promote the organisation’s vision, mission and core values and are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity and inclusivity. This includes attending and assisting at Blood Cancer UK events and activities as required, including occasional evening and weekend work. All employees are expected to follow Blood Cancer UK’s policies and procedures and do any reasonable thing required by their manager.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Knowledge

• An understanding of the medical research charity sector, with an interest in blood cancer research.

Skills

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills for liaising with internal and external stakeholders, including senior academics, ensuring clarity, professionalism, and courtesy in both verbal and written interactions.
• Self-motivated and proactive, with a strong willingness to learn and the ability to work independently.
• Proficiency in MS Office (Excel, Word, and Outlook) with the ability to efficiently manage and organise information/data.

Experience

• Experience working in an administrative role, including organising meetings and managing documentation, whilst providing a professional service
• Administrative skills and experience, with strong organisation and prioritisation skills and the ability to maintain high levels of accuracy and attention to detail.
•  Commitment to continuous improvement, with an interest and/or experience of streamlining processes for improved efficiencies.
• Experience using CRM systems or databases would be beneficial but not required. A willingness to gain experience with new IT systems is essential.

About Blood Cancer UK

FLEXIBLE WORKING & OUR BENEFITS

We welcome conversations about part time working, job shares, and all forms of flexible working right from application stage. You can get in touch with us at [email protected] if you want to ask us anything about flexible working.

Benefits: We think our benefits are brilliant, and the majority start from day 1. These are just a few of them:

• 30 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays
• Generous pension scheme and Life Assurance
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave, as well as study leave and a day off to move house
• Wellbeing is a priority for us, we offer a wide range of individual and team support in our Wellbeing Hub
• Our Academy is our in-house Continued Professional Development (CPD) learning and development programme, including an internal mentoring scheme. We have organisation-wide focus days, which are days set aside for you to focus on your own development, without being interrupted by emails and meetings.
• Cycle to work and season ticket loans
• Opportunity to take sabbaticals

You can find full details about our benefits on our website.

Location: Working agile means we changed from having a culture where people are expected to be in the office from 9am to 5pm to one where we’re much more focused on what they deliver. We've built a positive culture where autonomy, trust, wellbeing and flexibility allow us to recruit and retain the very best people.   We recognise that teams still need to come together regularly to develop relationships and strengthen collaborative working.   Therefore, for the majority of roles, your contractual place of work will be one of our offices. The expectation for how often you will be required to attend the office is outlined in the job profile and will be discussed with you.   Details about our hybrid and agile working approach (including how travel expenses work) can be found on our website.

HOW TO APPLY

We ask you to send us a CV and cover letter. In your cover letter, we'd like to know why you're interested in working with us at Blood Cancer UK. It's also helpful if you tell us why you think you are a great candidate for this role based on the skills, knowledge and expertise section above. Your cover letter doesn't have to be too long, 1-2 pages is ideal. Please don't add photos or graphics to your CV, as we use blind shortlisting at this stage of the process.

Full details about our recruitment processes, including how we use blind shortlisting and what to expect at each stage of the process can be found on our website. Sometimes we close our vacancies early, usually because we have had a lot of great applicants, so we’d always encourage you to apply early rather than wait until the deadline.

WHY WORK AT BLOOD CANCER UK?

We're the 9th best charity in the UK to work for according to Best Companies 2021!

We started because of Susan, we’ll get there because of you.

Blood Cancer UK was started by one family who lost their daughter, Susan, to blood cancer, and that history and sense of family continues to shape who we are today. When you join Blood Cancer UK, you don’t just become an organisational employee – you become part of a collaborative community dedicated to funding research into beating blood cancer that includes some of the most inspiring people you’ll ever meet.

And we’re not that far away from beating blood cancer. We’re confident we can do it within the next generation, and this makes us hugely ambitious and gives us a sense of real urgency. It also means we’re changing quickly as an organisation as we constantly challenge ourselves and strive to become more and more effective. This pace of change means working here isn’t for everyone. But if you’re excited by the chance to work in a fast-paced, agile and supportive environment with the focus and ambition to beat blood cancer this could be the place for you! We focus on results rather than time spent at a desk, so we deliver more for people affected by blood cancer.

Blood Cancer UK offers the chance to work for and with people affected by blood cancer, and the opportunity to advance your career and develop your skillset whilst taking on exciting new challenges and making your mark.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

We are committed to actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusivity. Read our statement which reflects our strong drive to change in this area.

To this end we would welcome approaches from individuals from underrepresented groups, including minoritised communities, and applicants with a disability, to better reflect the community we serve and help broaden our perspectives.

You can read some examples of how we can support you through the application and interview process here.

Documents

Research engagement officer job pack

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Research engagement officer role profile

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